


Jack Frost x OC

by andd_ys



Category: Jack Frost (2012), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, With sprinkles of fluff, light angst i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25615171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andd_ys/pseuds/andd_ys
Summary: You're not a kid anymore, but you still hold your fantasy stories close to heart.Besides, what's the harm on knowing so many fary tales? How you're going to become an old granny that tells fary tales to kids if you don't know them?What will happen though with your 'know-all-the-fary-tales' reputation when you're questioned with who's "Jack Frost"? The girl who found out his true tale wouldn't expect to actually ever meet him in person.
Relationships: Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians)/Original Female Character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. I WANT REAL TO BE FANTASY

The wind blew through her hair, whistling by her ears and freezing the tip of her nose while she made her way with her bike along the snow and salt on the ground. This winter was particularly colder than it used to be, making her complain to herself about the weather a few more times than normal throughout the day.

At this point, even though they were hidden beneath the cloth of her gloves, her hands felt almost numb from the cold. She hissed through her mouth, pushing herself by the thought of getting home faster and having a warm drink.

When arriving at her home, she made her way inside the front yard, hopin off the bike, she hesitated for a moment before finally going through the doorstep. She observed some patterns the frost left along the tree trunk beside her front window. Her bitterness towards winter was forgotten while she stared at those beautiful frozen figures.

After saying ‘hi’ to her mom, the girl took her bag off her shoulder, leaving it on the chair when she made her way through the kitchen, looking for a mug. Her mom was doing some housework, since it was a saturday afternoon, these chores are oftenly postponed to weekends. It was a family habit. 

The girl called her mom to the kitchen, she prepared a cup of hot chocolate for herself and her mother. Leaning against the table, the young girl started drifting inside her thoughts, getting lost in her mind. The pair quietly finished their warm drinks, making little to none conversation afterwards.

Just after finally snapping out of her thoughts, the girl decided to share with her mom what was on her mind: “- You know, mom, I found the most expensive book ever!”

“- Oh my, and let me guess, you want it, right?” - Said the mom, with a side smirk and a tiny eye roll.

“- Well, yes, ha ha, but you wanna guess what is it about?”- answered the daughter with a big smile.

“- I’d presume it’s a book about one of your college subjects.” - Inquired her mom, with a look that said ‘it better be it or else I’ll be mad’.

Her mom’s tone instantly killed her mood, figuring she’d have to play it differently with the conversation. Honestly, she didn’t want the book, she just wanted to tell her mom about her passion.

“- No, not really...it’s actually a book about all sorts of mystical and magical fantasy creatures, like a catalog.” - “But it’s full of amazing and artistic illustrations, all artists should at least have known of this book at least once!” - Fastly explained the girl, after seeing her mother’s face of disapproval.

“Well, Max, I suppose it must be nice to see those illustrations, but why are you so interested in these kinds of stuff recently?”

“- I have been looking for books about myths and tales of all different types of cultures…” - Was her evasive answer.

“ - Oh...okay, you can do that if you want, but always remember to focus on your academic subjects.” - said her mom, while leaving the kitchen.

After that kind of failed attempt of sharing her passions with her mom, the girl decided to not bring this subject up again, at least until she could herself figure out why she was so obsessed with all that stuff.


	2. SPIRITS? AM I CRAZY?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Posting this story to push me to finish this fic, enjoy!

The next day, Max headed out to the park, even if the cold messed with her mood, she still could have some fun. She left her house with her untouched bag from yesterday, the insides consisting the same as the day before: some fantasy books, some sketch books, a case filled with pencils, erasers, drawing material, a water bottle and some other items that never left her bag.

There were a lot of people in the park, most of them she knew, some were her friends, little of them had younger siblings, which were playing along with each other at the center, next to the park’s water fountain.

She approached her friends, they all had similar ages, went to the same school and are even having the same college subjects she is having nowadays. In conclusion, they have always been pretty close. After some random chatter, Max decided to introduce some of the stuff on her mind into their conversation, just for the sake of letting it out.

She started off by asking their opinion about ‘avoiding reality through entertainment’. They were all used to when she brought some deeper tone to their conversations, so they all shared some experience on the matter. They all positively agreed with the fact that everyone does that, no matter their age, sometimes doing it for a bigger period of time than others, depending on what goes on in this person's life, it changes it all.

She liked the information she got, it made her feel better somehow. But, there was something missing, something she knew that would not be achieved throughout this conversation, so she kept that little tingly feeling of insatisfaction to herself.

As her attention drifted off their chattering, her eyes wandered through the scenery. The kids were having so much fun. They threw snowballs at each other’s faces and laughed out loud. She took her sketchbook and one pencil off her bag and decided to approach them, she didn’t even notice her friends leaving the park.

While her intention was to try and capture the moment, the kids ran all over the place, building tiny walls made out of snow so they could protect themselves from other kids' snowballs. The scene was a mess, but the light of the sunset beaming at the snow made everything look wonderful.

At some point, she forgot about her drawing and just watched as they played, laughing out loud with them, having fun with their falls and when snowballs hit their faces.

But then, out of a sudden, she heard a male voice right beside her:

“- Won’t you gonna play along?”

Suffering from a laughing fit, she just replied out of reflex: “- Ha ha no, no I don’t think so.” 

But then, realizing someone she didn’t recognize just talked to her, she looked at her side, with the remains of a smiling face soon being replaced by a more confused one. Max searched her surroundings for whoever could have asked her that question, but she was only met with nobody, there were not even footsteps next to her.

The girl was completely perturbed after that event, trying her hardest to understand what happened. Only then she stopped looking around like a fool when her little brother stopped by her, he was playing with the other kids but most of them had already gone to their houses.

Max looked at little Jim while he asked her if she saw the snowball he threw right at Andrew’s mouth. The girl left aside her worries and just got along with her brother’s excitement. After she said that she did indeed see him do that, Max got up and put her belongings inside her bag, they would head back home.

By their way there, they invited Jaime to come along, since their houses would follow the same path. As the two boys lead the way some steps before her, Max just listened to their chatter about their similar fascination with fantastic creatures.

Their amazement with the subject was suddenly cut off when Jamie remembered something his mother told him before leaving his house. She told him that if he didn't take his hat with him Jack Frost would nip at his nose! Max chuckled at that sentence, but Jaime wondered if she knew something about this ‘Jack Frost’, both boys recognized that Max “knew all fairy-tales”, since she really knew a lot of them and could almost tell Jim a new story every night.

Realizing her position, the girl tried to hide her anxious mind saying “they got me, I don’t know that one”, but her cheeks turned red anyway. Nevertheless, she would not give up her fame, telling the kids she certainly knew about the tale of Jack Frost.


	3. THE TRICKSTER’S P.O.V.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things will start getting fun from now on, hopefully I'll write everything asap!

In the meanwhile, just as they were peacefully walking down the street, there was an unknown figure floating along with the breeze that messed with their hair. This unexpected guest was intrigued by the three of them, paying more attention after the special event that happened, when this weird girl heard his question.

He was, indeed, at the time, directing the question to her, since she was having fun watching the kids play with the snow. But he expected no answer, since he usually was invisible to everyone around him.

Jack expectantly waited for her answer about Jamie’s wonder, she really knew something about ‘Jack Frost’? He doubted that, but the thought of whatever she would tell them put a mischievous grin on his face.

“- Well you know....” - started the girl, turning her back at the boys, motioning her uncomfort. “- Jack Frost actually does nip at people’s noses during winter, because he… he likes to play little tricks with people!” - declared her, with a dramatic turn on her hills.

“- Wow, very clever.” - said Jack, squinting his eyes. He made the wind blow at her face as an annoyed sign. Jack floated around her, sitting on top of the house fence where they stopped by. 

The kids were not pleased either and started throwing at her a ton of unsatisfied questions. They demanded more explanations, so, as an effort to get out of this situation, Max just improvised some excuse, glad that they just made their way to Jamie’s house, so she could just drop the subject:

“- You see, Jack Frost is a magical being, - started she, ignoring their ‘ughs’ - he is able to freeze anything he wants as he wishes.” Max was doing her best to sound eloquent. “- But, since we’ve reached Jamie’s house, this tale will have to wait next time we’re able to all meet each other again.” And with these last words, she felt relieved with her improvising skills. 

Unfortunately, the kids knew that it meant that they would have to wait the whole week, until Max would visit the park on weekends, when she had some break from her normal week-teen-duties.  
Jack, on the other hand, was not going to wait throughout this whole time, he was not going to give up on making them figure out who Jack Frost was, even if he actually needed to nip at their noses.


	4. AN ELF? A WIZARD? AN ELF-WIZARD??

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So that was written super fast, bc I wanted this chapter to be shorter (I mean all my chapters are kinda short but I still have a lot to write), so the next chapter is crucial and special special :))

After her shameful little story telling, Max went on a relentless mission to find everything she could about Jack Frost. She ran to her bedroom, avoided everyone in her house for that night, even her little brother. She had to look for every clue possible.

On the internet, unfortunately, Max only found some kind of 'popular belief' around Jack Frost, as if he was some kind of Peter Pan. People used to think this 'mystical being' was the cause of the beautiful frost patterns drawn on windows and tree trunks.

But there wasn’t much more info about him, nothing much as 'some magic dude freezing some stuff and sometimes bothering people'. She had no choice but to choose to do some research on some old material, in the old fashioned way: - the best way - ancient library books.

❄❄❄

The next day, she flew with her bike all the way to the public library, renting every book she could find about magical beings, fairy tales, old folklore… She even had the impression that while she made her way back to her house, the wind was pushing her faster along the road in a very weird and supernatural way.

At her house, Max locked her bedroom door, opened every book she brought with herself, leaving some of them on her bed, on her desk, even on the ground (on top of her bedrug of course).  
Before digging her nose inside all the books, the girl noticed that her window was left open. The more she got near the window, the more it opened, letting the cool winter morning breeze inside her bedroom. When she put her hand on the glass, she felt how cold it was, and the breeze suddenly got stronger, as if pushing her window open for a brief moment. Max had to push it a little to close it completely, interrupting the wind to continue getting inside her bedroom.

Deciding to let it aside, Max turned her back from the window and finally started her research. Most books had little to no information about ‘winter mystical beings’. Besides the most popular creatures that lurk the winter forests, there was no such thing that seemed to match all ‘Jack Frost’s’ features that she found.  
To her surprise, the books that helped her the most were the fairy tale ones, most of the books from some of the coldest places on earth were all telling at some point about the snow patterns left on winter and how they were created.

These tales were closely linked to most folklores that described an actual entity drawing with snow along the streets, houses, forests, everywhere. Max decided to analyze the most frequent characteristics listed on these books to create herself a figure of how ‘Jack Frost’ would most likely be and look like.

“-Let’s see” - started the girl, getting up from the floor with an opened book in her hands - “in this book Jack Frost is described as something like a ghost-wizard with snow powers, he’s bitter and likes to freeze people’s feet on the ground when they walk past him. He is invisible to everyone since he doesn't like talking to people.” 

“- Well, this doesn’t sound right…” - Max held a doubtful face.

Leaving it aside she took another book from her bed. This one told her a more pleasing version, she read it aloud:

“- Jack Frost is an elf, he lives within snow forests, mountains and usually visits countries around the world taking blizzards with him. This joyful spirit was created from little sparkles of frost and ice left on top of flowers, at the end of winter, before spring comes, Jack Frost is born as a teenage elf and taken by the wind that flies him whenever the winter is going back to.”

“- Hm, this is not so bad, so this book thinks Jack Frost is some kind of winter fairy that brings blizzards to people…that actually sounds like a mischievous creature, like he’s trying to joke with people…” - Max conjectured.

“-The thing is that...the tales that mention him as evil usually describes him as a real person, or at least that he was something close to a person at some point of his life…”

The girl’s mind was fuming, she was connecting all the pieces on how his story would really be, how his appearance was like...she wore a deep frown while slowly walking back to her table where some other books were left wide open.

Turning around, she decided to recap out loud all the info that she’ve gathered, so that she could make more sense of her thoughts.

“-So, as most of the books describe him...he’s most likely to be a boy in his early adult years maybe, he’s kind of an elf also so he may be super old but still look like a teen” - at this point she was rambling while her hand squeezed her tightly shut eyes - “and... yeah, snow powers are definitive, but his motivations...I guess I’ll just decide he’s a trickster...yeah...like, he’s just looking for some fun but if you’re annoying he will nip at your nose....” - at this final statement Max’s voice slowly got quieter, while her eyes started to open and realize where that phrase was from.

“-Yes! That’s it!” - Max concluded that Jamie’s mom was right, he was a mischievous boy that played jokes and tricks on people, but not because he was bitter or trying to make people angry, he brought blizzards to make people have fun and laugh!


	5. Yeah, you’ve figured...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yay angst is my jam

Since Max’s “cunning” perceptive abilities were kinda off, Jack had a hard time making himself noticeable, I mean, he could just actually DO something ‘supernatural’ to make her believe in his existence...but that was kinda risky, she was reluctant to believe on magical stuff, even with the fact that she likes magical tales and is surrounded by them whenever she tells her brother a new story, Max didn’t believe them, she just...liked them.

So, because of that, there was a big chance that the girl would just be terrified if all of a sudden started snowing inside her bedroom instead of just actually believing it was him. Speaking of bedrooms, yeah, Jack was not super proud of himself for making his way inside her bedroom, but he had no other option since he wouldn’t be able to listen to her very well through the window.   
While she persistently read all the material in her hands, looking for information about himself, he just kept resting right next to her table, arms crossed and most of his body weight being supported by the wall. He got bored at some points to be honest, being glad when she finally started to talk out loud about her findings.

When he listened to her reading what the books said about him, he couldn’t help but laugh, but was actually disappointed with all the lame stories about him that people came up with over the years. He was indeed surprised and glad that most of it was right, he was super old, looked young, but elf? Wizard? No, these things were not him, they’re real, but not him.  
The magical boy held many faces throughout Max’s new findings, happy when she got something right, bothered when she got something wrong, annoyed when she couldn’t figure out some obvious stuff.

After a long time since she started researching, when Max finally managed to get all the pieces correctly together, she exclaimed “Yes! That’s it!”. And Jack walked right in front of her, he waited so her eyes opened again, since they were tightly shut, and when she looked at him, he really thought that she was really looking directly at him, for once she had finally seen him and discovered the truth.  
But no, her eyes were not focused on him. Even right in front of her, he couldn’t make her see him. He quietly asked:

“-What? What is it?” - his expression held a sorrowful yet resilient look. She knew it all, she figured him out, he could see it in her eyes, they looked totally pleased with her newfound discovery. Yet, she still didn’t believe him.

Max was still in place, holding her chin with her right arm while the other held her ribs, still deep in thought, she was planning on writing herself how she would tell Jack Frost’s story to Jamie and Jim with all the stuff she found out that still was unknown to so many people. Jack’s true tale. She was excited to write it, yet, there was something bothering her, like an unsettling presence.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t keep thinking about any of that for the rest of the day, she had to go to her part-time job after noon. All that was left was to write down, as the days passed, all she discovered to tell the kids at the end of the weekend. Like a little tale 'made' by herself, but, she wouldn't tell that part to the boys.

Jack waited with a defeated and annoyed expression as she rushed to get ready to leave the house so he could open the window and leave the place too.


	6. Last chance?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nice, this fic is my first try at writing a complete story in a language that's not my own so, I'll take a long time lol  
> also I believe that the same bad habits I have when writing in my own language are the same I make when writing in english, like writing long senteces and etc. so... let's have some fun and daydream while surviving quarantine

Max carried around everywhere she’d go a bunch of loose sheets of paper, whenever she had a break between classes and during her half-time job she’d write the version of Jack’s story for the kids. A new, clean and perfect version, including every reasonable aspect of Jack Frost she found in books.

Of course, the story would gain her own little touch, since she took upon herself the task of narrating Jack’s own true story. She didn’t want to go too far though, as a personal preference, she decided to leave his backstory quite untouched. It was as if her intuition left a tiny detail unnoticed, “why would a magical boy become magical to begin with?”, she unconsciously asked herself. That question bothered her as if it was slightly being blown at her ear. “Oh well,” - she thought - “magic is magic for itself after all…”

It all made up an interesting tale at the end, she believed the kids would love it. There still were some things to rewrite before the weekend, but it mostly got finished on Wednesday’s afternoon.

❄❄❄

In the meantime, our beloved trickster followed Max around for the following days after their last “meeting” at her house. He had better things to do, obviously, especially after Max’s insistent neglect of the presence right next to her. Even so, he couldn’t help but peek over her shoulder and read what she was writing. It was about him! That by itself was unbelievable, it took all of his strength sometimes to stop himself from bursting out of laughter or bickering with her.

It’s not like he completely avoided doing all that, the thing is that, sometimes, it was almost unbearable to not make contact with her, talk to her. All her words in those sheets of paper got Jack totally involved, even if that was not his intent. At the beginning he was just curious, but after reading more than three pages he suddenly forgot part of their circumstances:

“-Are you sure you’re gonna leave it like that? It’s making me look too much like a hero.” - Jack said, in between a burst of laughter, looking at the girl while she stared at the written pages and twitched her eyes, mindstorming about her own fantasies. His face expressed warm and cheerful feelings he felt after reading her words. Unfortunately, reality hit him like a truck, making him remember that she didn’t hear him at all, making him feel stupid for forgeting about that.

Leaning back on the chair he previously dragged next to her desk, Jack made an exasperated sound, sighing and putting his hood on. The whole situation brought him mixed feelings. He could have sworn that sometimes she could listen to him, see him, acknowledge his presence, but no. The comments he would make out loud about her story were only replied with a presumable silence, however, if he paid close attention, the girl would write something similar about his objections, or even modify parts of her work a couple of moments after he even mentioned them.

All those weird coincidences weirded him out. He would stare at her with a frown, quietly observing her and wondering: how the hell could she have written what he said if she couldn’t hear him?  
He made a decision, he would put all his last efforts into getting her attention. He couldn't care less if she was at work or school and suddenly her desk started to freeze, he told himself he would give it a last try.

❄❄❄

Max knew that if she avoided her responsibilities so that she could write her story was dumb and childish. But well, those things can wait, she was too much into it, she couldn’t just leave it aside.  
Unfortunately, her time was short, the last thing she wanted was more homework and to work extra hours at her job. If she stayed there much longer she would be out in the evening and the sky would be almost dark. The dark wasn’t her biggest problem, but at night the cold would definitely give her a frostbite.

So she forced herself to forget about her magic tale and tried to focus on her duties. With a tremendous work of self-discipline, Max finished all her chores, finally being able to leave the place at her usual hour.

Since her thoughts couldn’t leave her written sheets of paper, it wasn’t unexpected that she would take them out of her bag and start writing on her way home, while the subway would make its way back to where she needed to be. Writing inside a moving train wasn’t that easy, but she didn’t care, her eyes never left the paper, reading and re-reading her previous words.

It wasn’t until a weird sound coming from her back took her attention, making her finally stare at something else. She was facing the other people sitting in front of her, the only thing behind her was the subway’s window. Max peeked over her shoulder, wondering what was that weird cracking noise.

When her eyes met the dark of the walls on the other side of the window, the next thing her eyes locked on was the unusual frost pattern being formed on the glass right before her eyes. The frost danced in front on her, forming beautiful flower patterns. The first thing the girl instinctively decided to do was to draw the figures formed on her notebook, they were simply mesmerizing.

Weirdly enough, the more she drew, more patterns were formed, almost covering the whole window. The girl suddenly felt perturbed, imagining that if the wind was that cold, she would have to run for her house, making it as quick as possible. She doubted her clothes were enough to keep her warm on that freezing weather.

Just when the weird frost phenomenon started to cover the whole extent of the window, the subway stopped and its doors opened, letting the cold wind come inside. Max quickly left, running and dodging people on her way. To her surprise, it wasn’t as cold as she expected, however, the girl felt as if a weird mass of coldness was following her, her back felt weird shivers whenever she slowed her pace, as if there was really an angry winter cloud behind her back.

❄❄❄

Jack followed her, easily making it behind her tracks - it’s super easy to follow someone when you can just float right over people, even through them! -, freezing fences, the sidewalk she walked over, basically creating a frost path behind everywhere she passed.

He was waiting for her to notice it, so that he would make it right next to her, stopping at a halt with the frost track. She would notice the frost was “following” her. Or so, that was what he was expecting, after people around her glanced at the weird girl that was leaving a frost path behind her, he knew the look on her face would be something really funny to see.

When Max finally looked down at her feet, almost crashing on the ground because of the slippery surface - only standing on her feet because of a weird gush of wind that balanced her body -, she didn’t have much time to reason what was going on. She heard her name, someone called her, they seemed urgent, desperate even.

She looked at her right, looking for the person that called her, catching the glimpse of a shadow. Unfortunately, the person that called her was ten steps away from her, on her left, it was her mom, and she looked infuriated.


	7. Don’t let it go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi hi fellow humans, I'm proud of the fact that I've finally written a long chapter for a change  
> also this one is the apex of my angst teen vibes lmaoooo  
> also, I guess I should warn there's like one (1) 'inappropriate word', the one that starts with bull and ends with t
> 
> ALSO, if you're interested, follow my blog on tumblr - butiamlookingforlove - for naruto fanart and existential crisis!

Max felt dumb when all she could do was look at her mother with a lost and taken aback expression on her face. If she was honest, the voice she heard was definitely not her mother's. It seemed like a boy called her name, his voice sounded like a warning, maybe a warning for her to see something she wasn't seeing.

Nonetheless, her mom stomped in her direction, asking where she was, where was her mind, what she was thinking. Questions that had no meaning to Max, she had no idea what her mom was talking about.

Then, it suddenly hit her. She was supposed to ask her boss if she could leave work a little bit earlier this afternoon, she had to take her brother from his doctor's appointment, since today her mom exceptionally couldn't accompany him throughout his whole appointment.

He wasn't sick or anything, it was just kind of an annual appointment to check if he's good and healthy. She knew about that, she just forgot.

After all her mom said to her, nothing ached more than her own blame on her chest. She barely heard anything her mom was almost screaming at her face, all she could do was put on a blamed-like poker face and listen quietly to her mom's rant.

They got inside the house since their encounter happened one block away from it. Max was getting ready to find her brother and say sorry, trying to think about what she could do to make up with him, she could even tell her story about Jack Frost before the weekend, she didn't mind.

However, her mom suddenly snapped her out of her thoughts, calling her attention, her lecture wasn't finished.

"-Maxine, you can't deny that this mistake is closely linked to your recent neglectful behavior. You've been out of this world for days now!"

"-I..I know mom, I agree with that, I'm sorry."

"-You can't loosely ask for forgiveness again if you won't truly stop with that for once. You have to stop wasting your time with silly fairy tales, you're too old for that! And I don’t want to see you influencing your brother every night with all these stupid supernatural stories, it’ll only make him scared!"

Max understood why her mom was acting this way, she couldn’t persuade her into reasonableness, she knew it wouldn’t have reached this point if she hadn’t forgotten about her brother. That’s how her mother is, one single misstep and you’ll be blamed for all your past behavior.

She was about to leave the room without saying a word, her mom was already turning her back on her, finally beginning to calm down. When Max walked to the stairs leading to her bedroom she found her brother on the top of them. He looked at her with a pained expression, glossy eyes and feeling worried about his sister.

Jim waited for about an hour at the doctor’s clinic, he got really bored and angry at Max. But right now, he could forget that, the last thing he wanted was for her to stop telling him new fairy tales and ghost stories at night. When Max reached the last step she looked at Jim, mirroring his glossy eyes, but her face told a different story. Her face was warm, she quietly asked: “I’m sorry for forgetting about you, can you forgive me, Jim?” while caressing his hair, easing his worries.

All he could do was tightly pull at the girl’s clothes, embracing her and hiding his face on the fabric of her jacket.

As the hours passed, Max avoided her mom, stayed inside her bedroom most of the time, only leaving it when it was close to bedtime. She knew her mom would stay in a bad mood for the rest of the night, so she needed to make sure her brother got to sleep with some piece of heart. Max assured him that their mom was just temporarily mad at her and that she would never stop telling him bedtimes stories at night. Of course, she told him all the information she knew about aliens - since her brother was into a space-secrets mood -, area 51, just as a symbolic apology. They kept quietly talking for a long time after midnight. Max knew the consequences, but she didn’t care. 

After her brother started to get sleepy, Max wished him good night and went back to her bedroom. She didn’t feel like sleeping, she needed to get all her frustration off her chest.

She put a ton of clothes on, gloves, boots, her beanie, even her scarf. She would leave the house, there was a place she went whenever she needed to be alone, she would be back home in one hour. 

❄❄❄

When Jack recognized Max’s mom, it was too late, he called her name as an attempt to get her to know he was there, before her mom came at her direction, since he knew after that they would have to part ways, it would be impossible to get anything out of it.

Especially after seeing the way her mother was looking at her. When the older woman stomped at their direction Jack dragged his hand across his forehead, visibly exasperating his frustration:

“-Oh c’mon, no!” - he exclaimed at the situation. Leaving a series of ‘ughs’, looking down at his feet when the mom pulled Max away from her spot.

Just some seconds ago, Jack used his staff to create the gush of wind that balanced Max, and now, she was distancing herself from him. He even felt kind of ashamed to follow them, but something was telling him that this would be a rough night.

Even through the window, Jack could hear the words Max’s mom shouted at her. The girl looked deeply wounded by what her mother was saying. He placed his hand on the window, freezing the surface, but that didn’t call no one’s attention.

He decided it would be better to leave them, they already had too many things to solve, didn’t need something else bothering them. To be honest, he felt sorry for Max, but something deep within him wasn’t that much sorry. He told himself that ‘something inside’ was him being selfish, of course he didn’t want her to be scolded by her parent. But honestly, he didn’t see it before, but now, away from her, he’s really just looking forward to knowing how this will end. He hadn't thought about that before, but it was almost as if he badly wanted the girl to finish the story - his story.

❄❄❄

The white haired boy spent the next hours sadly wandering around Max’s neighbourhood, he couldn’t get his head to stop thinking about her. Even if he wasn’t directly thinking about her, he couldn’t stop wondering why would her mom be so unreasonable, telling her to forget about magic tales - about him -, wondering if her brother was okay and if he got too mad at her, wondering if that event would unsettle her too much. So, yeah, he was thinking about her.

The snow around him floated by the air when he made his way along the breeze. He flew across streets, buildings, houses, trees, behind everywhere he passed he’d leave a frost trace. The longer he mindstormed, the worst the snowstorm got. He was getting bothered and impatient, for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Actually, he didn’t care to do that, he turned on his heels and jumped off the building he climbed before, he was going to make his way back to her house. The excuse he told himself was that he just wanted to check her out, if he found her fast asleep, maybe he would stop worrying about an uncertain future.

The moment he landed back on the roof of her house, he didn’t even need to look for her through her bedroom window. Jack found the girl sneaking out through the front door.

She rushedly made her way towards the sidewalk, almost running when turning the corner. Jack noticed she had a purse with her, the purse she usually had with her when she would go to the park. Her suspicious behaviour only fueled something inside Jack, the wind got stronger, it blew against her body, making her almost fight through it to keep walking down the street.

“-Where the hell are you going?” - asked Jack with an angry tone, creating a new gush of wind, without his intention, that helped to almost completely cover her hair with snow.

After a fifteen minute walk, the girl brought them to a clearing among the trees from the grove located close to her house. The place was completely covered in snow, the grass was invisible and frozen. The place seemed to be kind of forgotten, no one took care of it, so next to the clearing there were some piles of trash, bags filled with abandoned items, even some furniture was left in there - how would someone abandon a whole couch? -, the girl slowed her pace. She was contemplating her surroundings, the moon was full, cascading light enough for her to distinguish the shape of the things around her.

She slowly walked at the pile of trash, inspecting two empty paint cans. She took them with her, placing one of them upside down, so she could use it as a stool. The second one she put in front of her, leaving it’s opening facing the night sky.

Jack was already seriously bothered by the whole thing, walking around her out of curiosity, completely confused by her actions. He was getting truly worried now, finding her weird change of behavior totally unexplainable.

The girl definitely did not know how to deal with her previous argument with her mother. She finally revealed the reason why she brought her purse with her: it had the written pages of Jack’s story inside it. However, there was something deeper beyond this, the feelings that weighed her down were from things older than this night.

Max started reading all she’s written again possibly for the millionth time, but this time she wasn’t looking for things to fix, her face was devastated, with every word her expression contorted with sadness, bringing back the tears she’s been holding since the beginning of the night.

“-I’ve been out of this world for too long…” - Max quoted her mom’s previous words, thinking about them, believing them to be part of the truth.

The girl harshly brushed off the tears from her face, almost scratching her eyes with unjustified and excessive force. Then, after every sheet she finished reading, Max began putting them inside the empty can. She continued, with a choked voice: 

“-I should’ve stopped this long ago…” - she inhaled deeply - “all I’m doing right now, it’s pointless, I’m just holding on to something that should have been long forgotten.” - finished her, shaking her head abruptly, almost tossing the remaining sheets left.

Max was starting to feel the terrible pain when you completely let go of a part of yourself from the past, leaving behind along with it all your previous tastes, preferences, loved things. She finally concluded out loud, after a brief pause: “-These things cannot continue at my side, I need to let them go. For my own good.”

The next thing she took out of her purse was a lighter.

❄❄❄

“-BULLSHIT!” - exclaimed Jack, finally realizing Max’s intentions. His feet were glued on the snow moments before, but now, the boy stomped the ground while making his way in front of the sobbing girl. His voice sounded angry yet his face told otherwise, his eyes never left the girl, always wide with an unnoticed fear.

“- Max, listen, this is stupid” - he crouched down before the paint can filled with sheets of paper - “- You don’t want to do this! You don’t have to let it go!” - pleaded the boy with a newfound pain in his chest, a feeling he never thought he’d have for that girl. 

A snowstorm was starting, and it was getting worse again while the minutes passed. The tiny snowflakes that were previously falling now started to completely cover the girls clothes, making her shiver from the cold and wetness. 

She hesitantly started to light the lighter, trembling hands and blurry vision. She wasn’t going to make it quick, she’d burn every sheet one by one, leaving nothing behind. The closer her other hand got from the paint can, the rougher the wind blew her face, making her lids close rapidly.

When she touched the can a strong blast of air hit her, putting out the flame of the lighter. She couldn’t bring herself to immediately use the lighter again, her hand fell wimp on her thigh as a sudden shiver rocked her whole body. Her other hand still lightly held the can and more tears rolled down her face.

At this point, Jack was beginning to believe there was nothing he’d say that would make her hear him this time, he couldn’t do anything, or at least that was what he thought, since everything around them was being affected by his feelings of frustration.

The next thing he did, with hopelessness in his heart, was holding her hand, briefly touching the can when his hand passed through hers. He lifted his other hand, tenderly brushing his fingertips on her cheek, trying to wipe away her tears.

Max had her eyes closed when her hand and cheek started feeling itchy. At first she didn’t notice what was going on, but then, that ich started to ache a little, she opened her eyes and could see her glove almost being frozen on the can, its fabric starting to glue with the cold metal. Also, her teardrops were turning into ice on her face, leaving a reddish burnt mark.

Her head snapped up, eyes wide staring at the boy that appeared out of nowhere in front of her, taken aback when she felt his hands holding her own hand and face.

The wind was still strong, whistling wildly in their ears. Jack didn’t know what to say, never having anticipated this situation before. He just mirrored her wide eyed expression, actually, he didn’t need to react to what was happening, he wasn’t fast enough.

Max was already yelping, backing away from the boy, falling ungracefully on her back. Since their hands were almost frozen together, Jack got yanked forward, almost bringing his whole body with his hand on the ground. As his heart rate slowed down from the surprise, he managed to free his hand from the frost he had formed around the girl’s hand and the can.

“-It’s okay, Max it’s me! You- you know me!” - started the boy, backing off from the fallen girl, taking the can along with him.

“-Look, you don’t need to let it go, you don’t need to let ME go…” - his eyes got unfocused after those words left his mouth, shaking his head he decided not to think too much about them, staring at the catatonic girl in front on him - “Here, take these back, I’ll take you home.” - he handed her the sheets back, tossed the can away and tried to get her back on her feet.

This whole time, Max could barely comprehend what was happening before her eyes, staring at the blue hooded boy in a mix of awe, fright and confusion. The storm seemed distant, her own surroundings becoming blurred and unrecognizable.

She grabbed the sheets he was giving back to her, unable to really judge her actions correctly, Max felt like the apparition in front of her could be some kind of angel. Everything passed by in a second, she was being held, suddenly the ground was not on her feet, she was flying in the air, and in the blink of an eye, she was crossing her bedroom window and was messely put on her bed. Feeling the fabric of a blanket on top of her, she just closed her eyes and fell asleep.


	8. Magic is in the air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> damn I just noticed we're getting close to Christmas I'm so happy, and so, it's Jack Frost's season - at least for me - and I just think it's perfect  
> at least I hope it gives me enough nice vibes and inspiration to finish this fic and to give my best to write it the way I want it to turn out like
> 
> so yeah, rambling off, enjoy this chapter, I think it got pretty cute - to balance out the angsty of the latest chapter - and even if the name of this chapter is cliche and all there'll probably be a lot more magic coming on next chapters so yeah, this time of the year just makes me feel happy and everything's happy, hope everyone gets to feel - at least a bit - better too after this year's events!

Even Jack couldn’t really grasp everything that happened after she started seeing him. He couldn’t even feel the joy of finally being seen by her at the moment. Right now, back inside her bedroom, he felt quite apprehensive, the back of his mind trying to bring panic inside his heart saying that in the morning she’d have forgotten about him. Of course, that didn’t bother him for too long, or at least, that was what he pushed himself to believe, even if it felt impossible for him to fall asleep for a long time.

Yeah, he decided to stay the night, he still had to explain to her what happened, who he was, make sure she didn’t freak out again. There was an extra cushion propped on the wall behind her bed, he took it and placed it on the other side of her bedroom, next to the window they came from. He hardly ever needed any sleep, but this night he made an exception, besides, he got pretty worked up with what happened, some rest wouldn’t be bad.

❄❄❄

In the morning, one hour before Max’s alarm clock would start ringing, she woke up out of nowhere, feeling weird and with a headache. She decided to scold herself afterwards for sleeping with wet clothes instead of her pajamas. All she needed was to go to the bathroom, change clothes and go back to sleep, she didn’t even turn the lights on while doing all of that.

Unfortunately, when the alarm clock finally ringed, Max felt even worse, feverish, she probably catched a cold last night. She managed to weakly walk down the stairs, call her mom and tell she was feeling sick. After taking some painkillers, the girl simply drank a glass of water and went back to bed, unable to have any breakfast. She’d stay home and miss class this morning, probably work too, not that she was particularly bothered by that.

Coming back to her bedroom, finally taking a proper look at it, she noticed the weird person sleeping on her cushion, back turned at her. She’d have called her mom, her breath hitched and her hands started to sweat, but something stopped her. The hoodie, she recognized the weird blue hoodie with frost design that almost looked like real frost - and could possibly be real frost, she didn’t know - from last night. 

“So it wasn’t a dream!” - she thought, getting closer to the sleeping figure. Max crouched before him, analyzing his features. She couldn’t muster any courage to wake him up, he looked heavenly by her eyes, almost unreal.

Suddenly, the door was opened, Max almost jumped out of her skin, losing her balance, kneeling on the cushion, barely avoiding her fall on top of the sleeping boy. 

“-Max! What’s up with you?” - it was Jim, his tone was worried but he barged into her bedroom anyway, walking around hurriedly, looking for something.

“-I-I’m fine Jim, don’t worry, ‘s just a headache…” - Max moved her position so she was just naturally sitting on the cushion, trying to look normal so her brother wouldn’t think something was wrong. “-What you looking for?”

“-I have to go to class so I gotta find it quickly, I think I left my “Weird Cosmos” magazine around here last time we played here.” - answered the boy, while tossing out the content of a huge box.

“-Last time I’ve seen it was in the living room, not in my bedroom, besides, why do you even need it at school?” - Max actually had no idea where the magazine was, she just wanted her brother to leave the room.

“-UGH, how else will I survive school if I don’t bring it along with me?”

“-Fair point.” - she chuckled.

“-Here it is! I knew it was here!” - Jim exclaimed after pulling the magazine from the bottom of a pile of books - “Bye Max, get better before I get back!” - the young boy ran out of the room with the speed of light.

“-oof…” - Max exhaled, breathing normally when her brother left the room. Glancing at her side, the sleeping boy started to move, begrudgingly sitting up on the cushion.

“-Not that I mind but this is an unusual way to say good morning” - Jack said, questioning with a smirk the girl's suspicious position. He heard the conversation she had with her brother, deciding to move after the kid would leave the room. While sitting up, he wondered what she was doing there, he dragged his hand through his face, trying to get the sleep away from his eyes. His voice was still kind of low from waking up.

Max quickly got up, eyes never leaving the boy, still, she couldn’t get a word out of her mouth. Jack lazily got up too, stretching his arms and back. After a long and quiet moment, he finally noticed the way Max was looking at him. He hopped off the cushion with a tiny jump. 

“-C’mon, I thought you’d be happy to see me.” - his tone was lowkey bothered but his face was complacent.

Max eyed everything but the boy’s face, trying to reason what was going on. At the next moment, her eyes opened wide, they looked bright even, she asked, innocently:  
“-Are you my guardian angel?”

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle at her question, he lightly furrowed his brows, dragged his hand on his face - again - and his ears got into a pinkish tone - but he didn’t notice that.

“-No, no, not really that type of guardian.” - he answered, giving her a fast smile.

“-Then who are you? Why are you here?” - she asked again, self conscious, with a tiny botherence growing on her heart.

Jack huffed, pacing around the bedroom, looking for the written sheets of paper he rescued from being burned last night. After putting her on her bed (last night), he took the sheets from her hands, leaving them next to her laptop, on her desk.

“-This, this is who I am.” - he showed her the sheets of paper, holding them in front of her face. She recognized them, noticing some words were blurred due to the snow that fell on top of the sheets.  
She retrieved them from his hands, furrowing her brows with doubt. The realization hit her like different waves: doubt, disbelief, considering it to be truth and acceptance. Max gasped, a big and bright smile contorting her whole face into a happy and amazed expression. She childishly jumped in place, holding the sheets tightly on her chest.

“-What.. How-how is this possible?! Oh my God! I can’t believe it!”- Max slightly thought she was still dreaming, but wouldn’t dare questioning it, she didn’t want it to end.

Jack chuckled at her bubbly behavior, lowkey relieved she truly believed in him. She suddenly threw thousands of questions at him, seemed like she thought last night was a dream of some sorts, he didn’t want to touch the subject, felt like he didn’t need to.

“-But, how can I see you? Can I see every other magic creature out there too now?” - from all of her previous questions, Jack thought best to use these one to swiftly prevent her from asking much more. He motioned for permission to grab back her paper sheets, quickly floating on top of her bed, sitting down.

“-It’s all up to you. You believe in me, believe in my existence, you can see me.”

“-But, I don’t really know much of you at all, I even got to the point of creating your own tale...how can I believe you?”

“-Well, I don’t know, you’re the weird one. You heard my voice that day in the park.” - with that second statement, Max wrinkled her nose, she would retort his statement with something else, but Jack cut her before she opened her mouth.

“-And about the ‘don’t know me’ part. We can fix it.” - he said, lifting and slightly wiggling the sheets on his hand. His side smirk invited her to the task. She’d rewrite the wrong parts of his story, the true story, told by Jack himself.

❄❄❄

Max sat on the bed, her headache coming back to bother her. She wouldn’t let that be an issue, she was too excited to pay attention to it. Actually, she didn’t have much work to do after all, the boy was excitedly going on and on about all the stuff a magic boy can learn over thousands of years. 

Max just got comfy and sat down on her pillows, her blanket covering her while she happily heard the boy. He would twirl around like if he was weightless, whenever he got more and more cheered up with his own stories about the Moon. Seemed like there was a man living there, he was the one that ‘brought’ Jack Frost to life, he created him and all the mystic that is his life now.

Apparently, Jack was indeed a guardian. The boy was going on a rant about weird yetis that kidnapped him and took him to the North Pole. He briefly explained how at first he didn’t want to be a guardian, the difficulty he had to find out whatever it is that he’s supposed to be guardian of. Until some things happened and helped him find out that he’s the guardian of-

“ - Fun.” - let out Max, loud enough for Jack to hear and stare at her, finally settling down on top of her night stand.

“ - Yeah, that’s right.” - his smile turned soft.

Max noticed that out of all the things she got right about him, a ‘guardian’ never really crossed her mind. But it made sense, that’s why people usually had unexplainable moments of joy during winter, even if it is a weather that usually restricts people’s ‘fun’s’ activities - and even Max, who generally didn’t really like that weather, she could agree there were some good things enjoyable to it. Anyway, she’d have to rewrite the last pages, erase the wrong parts and basically recreate that part of her work to better blend it with Jack’s words. She’d have it done and finished in about two hours.

While Jack looked at her with an inquiring face, wondering what was going through her mind again, the girl started planning her next activities: she’d spend the afternoon organizing everything she needed to do about the tale, and since she would probably start feeling worse if she got outside, she knew today wasn’t the day to ask Jack to show her how exactly his ‘fun’ powers are. So she blurted out:

“ - Hm, so, ok, I need to get this officially done. Tomorrow is Saturday so I only have this afternoon to finish it. Also, I really wanted to see the kid’s reactions, they love having fun during winter, it’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to show your powers, I can even add that on some loose papers at the end of the story-” Jack interrupted her:

“ - Why wait for tomorrow, we can go to your front yard and I can throw some snowballs at your face and -” now Max interrupted Jack, lowkey believing he was joking about throwing snowballs at her face:

“ - No, no, I’m, I’m still feeling kind of sick, I’m afraid of feeling worse if I go outside in the snow, I should wait for tomorrow -” 

“ - Okay, okay, I get it” - Jack brushed off the topic, remembering last night’s events. He walked to the window and let it slightly open, bringing his wooden staff along with him.

“ - Well, I guess I should leave you to your writing and see ya later, after all, I got my own guardian duties to fulfill, right...” - his tone and body language implied that he was about to leave, with a lowkey grudgingly attitude.

“ - Hey, but, uh...you’ll come back right?” - Max blurted out, again, this time as if she couldn’t help herself.

“ - Yeah, of course.” - Jack offered a sweet smile followed by a sudden lift of his right brow. He had his body turned to the window, but after seeing her motion, he went back next to her bed.  
She held her pinky in the air “ - Pinky promise?” - Max could feel her cheeks go pink, but she wanted to give him a proper goodbye.

Jack held her pinky with his own, remembering when he held her hand the other night, only this time, he was not about to freeze their hands again.

“ - I promise.” - his own cheeks seemed kind of pink, but he brushed it off again and quickly flew through the window, making snowflakes dance in the air.


End file.
